Family Dinner Time
May 15, 2003

They say that suppertime is family time, and the same can be said of our family. Only sometimes it’s more like the “Addams Family”.

We begin by saying grace. After saying “amen”, we get a report from our youngest son that his brother had his eyes open during the prayer. (Ironic, that he would know that.) Switching subjects, I ask whether he had washed his hands before coming to the table. As he excuses himself to wash his hands, I get up to wash mine, too. I had already washed them, but our family holds hands during the prayer, and I was sitting next to him.

Once back at the table, a predictable conversation ensues regarding tonight’s menu. The unsolicited comments are answered by a directive from the chief chef (my wife) to go outside, and walk down to the stop sign on the street corner, touch it, and then return. (Yes, I know-- unusual punishment, but not cruel… yet.)

If it were up to the kids, we would eat pizza every night. A few years ago, that might not have sounded too bad, but with age comes a reordering of priorities, including taste preferences. (I still love pizza, but everything in moderation.) Regarding menu selection, we follow the advice of Fran Lebowitz, “Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he's buying.” Needless to say, we never ask. (As the kids race back from the stop sign, laughing all the way, I question whether this form of punishment is not actually promoting the sort of behavior that we are trying to discourage.)

Now that the issue of cuisine quality is settled, the question of quantity comes up. It seems the two are inversely related. In the past, we had to dish out a mandatory round of seconds, before the kids even started eating their firsts, because their plates looked like they had been dished up with a pair of tweezers and an eye dropper.

Nowadays, in order to save time, we simply enforce the “Cool Hand Luke” rules of etiquette: We fill their plates, ourselves, with the quantity that we desire --and then require their plates to be empty before they leave the table. This works just fine, but it does require patience and careful monitoring. On one occasion, our dutiful daughter cleaned her plate, excused herself from the table, wiped her mouth, took her empty plate to the sink, and threw away her napkin. Good girl! Or was she?

Inspired by the spirit, I told her to hold on. Upon retrieving her napkin from the trash can, the evidence suggested that her empty plate only reflected a full napkin of half-chewed asparagus. Busted! After returning from the stop sign, she was treated to another helping of asparagus, only slightly larger this time.

When I return to my own plate, I find that my dinner roll is gone, accompanied by the sound of snickering. There are some foods that the boys do not have to be forced to eat, dinner rolls being one. But even so, “man does not live by bread alone,” and so I begin espousing on the virtues of a balanced diet and the need to eat vegetables. “You should eat something green every day.” I then have to explain to my daughter that Tic-Tacs don’t count.

After waxing eloquently, I reach for my tea glass, where I find my dinner roll floating inside. My words of wisdom are now punctuated by a round of raucous laughter. Very funny. I’m sure they’ll remember that lecture now.

I now set the good example by eating my asparagus. It’s not like Mom used to make—but then again, that’s because my Mom never made asparagus. I guess she didn’t like it. If she were here right now, she would be walking to the stop sign. Indeed, I never knew what asparagus was until I got married.

But in her defense, my Mom always cooked broccoli. Our kids have never seen broccoli, but they have had to spell it in the spelling bee. My wife doesn’t like broccoli. “Hit the pavement!”

Oh my! I just realized that my daughter’s future children are going to think that the only food on earth is comprised solely of corn dogs and cheese sticks!

© Copyright 2003 Glen Davis